AP. 25 January 2002. Argentina Braces for Major Protest.
BUENOS AIRES -- Angry Argentines blocked highways and demanded jobs and food during demonstrations Friday, responding to calls from anti-government organizers for a nationwide protest over the persistent economic crisis. Through e-mails, Web sites, and word of mouth, neighborhood and labor groups called for citizens to fill streets and city plazas in a massive pot-banging protest after nightfall. A nationwide protest would be the first against Duhalde's three-week-old caretaker government, marking a major challenge for the unpopular steps he has taken to try to improve the economy. For weeks, Argentines have waited on block-long lines outside banks trying to take out hard-earned savings. There have been scattered protests, including violent outbursts in which demonstrators have shattered bank windows and firebombed a politician's home. In Friday's protest, neighborhood leaders from several districts around Buenos Aires planned to lead marchers to the main downtown square, the Plaza de Mayo, the focal point of the widespread unrest that led to the Dec. 20 resignation of former President Fernando de la Rua. During the day, demonstrators blocked a key bridge on a highway leading to the southern suburbs of Buenos Aires. In another part of the capital, a crowd of some 100 people from a poor neighborhood went to a supermarket and shouted for food, but the store shuttered its gates. At two other supermarkets in the Buenos Aires area, requests for food were peacefully delivered by neighborhood groups. Scuffling and brawling broke out when unemployed Argentines demanding jobs marched in Guaymallen in the western province of Mendoza. Media reports said the jobless protesters clashed briefly with a group of municipal workers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Barry Stoller http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ProletarianNews
